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From the hour of our birth,
no moment is the same,
yet each contains all things,
how can any of us ever be alone?

One foot in front of the other,
waves break on the shore,
we follow our ancestors
as breath follows breath.

Lighting incense to Amida Buddha,
I empty my bowl
and already find it
full of blossom.

------------------------------------
Feel free to message me if you wish to talk about issues around practicing with physical limitations. This is something I have been sitting with for a fair while and am happy to help with suggestions or just offer a listening ear.

There are rooms in a life that may sometimes
Have someone in them; but they are guests there.
Even when one most loves, one may find,
Really, a solitude that begins at this wall,
Ends at that wall; the rest is not entirely ours.

As years turn and suns, moons and stars
Rise up and fall like rain by every window
Even one's hands will shrivel soon enough

Right at the ends of one's arms, as hands
Of strangers. But to fret at this discovery
Of emptiness arrived at and emptiness
Made clear by moon's dance with water,
Sun's dance with dust, by endings never sought

In even that one room that is one's own, is
Not worthy of even that we call our life.

All our guests deserve from us restraint.

Little enough we can offer them as it is;
In a short while each vacates each room,
Feeling for the light switch as each goes.
Evening comes. Do not grieve the door.

gassho
doyu sat today

I'm a visiting unsui from Bird Haven Zendo. Take what I say with a box of salt. Mmm!

Dropping pain to breath
Breathe in our master Dogen
All in Genjokoan yet in cooking
Public, private, drop away
More hungry ghost,
Les is more human,
Nirvana, here before me food,
Limited by tip of stomach
Growl; toast, juice, fruit,
Can pain drop away?
Not likely sinner ghoul!
No time is ancient
Twenty minutes until 1185
Came to pass in cooking bowl,
Five minutes now, now,
With no pain, pain again,
Hold on more, pain comes
I eat, I let go, cannot sit
In this easy chair, breathe
Breakfast I may eat, my only
Desire, oatmeal, after reading
Dogen this moment,
Mindfully hurting
Iced myself down, so I
May sit with steaming bowl
My gratitude in bowl of food,
From reclining chair
To hardwood table
Downing every morsel.

Tai Shi
Sat/lah
Gassho

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Last edited by Tai Shi; 02-02-2020 at 01:20 AM.

The object of practice is not transcendence but transformation, yet ultimately we must transcend ourselves. (Elucidation of Dogen) in HOW TO RAISE AN OX

You sat today--
Your whole life in one decade--
Each day I'm fragile, I'm sixty-eight,
Light years old--farms surround,
Our Rocky Mountains gone, yearning
At sixty-four, you find my weaknesses,
Zen becomes your lesson, my sight,
My Horrible Satori July 22nd, 1987 Dry,
No bottle; yet January 7th, 1980 we
Talked, our only game, now quiet.
Yes, you taught me Zen formations,
Marjorie, you were Frightened child,
I became my poetry, contracts of teaching
Damned wine into darkness,
Then police drug bust, they stormed;
While I drank daily because I opened
My clarity. You surprised me with joy,
Our pools of old water smelled
Until I declined another drink,
Better for books, for our four-year-old
Girl child, days of liquid mindfulness
We declined this fate, we created,
This child; I walked like ball of string
With no shield or sword of growth,
Evergreens, daughter planted pine,
Twenty-six years ago, now she's thirty,
With spontaneity, emptiness filling us
Still my poetry, my Loneliness--
Cave where you populated us
With her--daughter of dreams
March 27th, 1989 this baby
Born despite our reprise, first kiss,
Rose gradually in silence,
You said at last this important act
Dispelled my illusions, imparting
Time we did not touch or press
After 2009 when bodies did not rise,
From marriage, we became our stories,
In Bach's Art of Fugue, your last
Let It Be, an example, sitting face
To face, joined four decades
In silence. Now we breathe,
This January 7th, 2020.

Tai Shi
sat/ lah
Gassho

Last edited by Tai Shi; 02-01-2020 at 09:27 PM.

The object of practice is not transcendence but transformation, yet ultimately we must transcend ourselves. (Elucidation of Dogen) in HOW TO RAISE AN OX